—Day 120—
Dean spends the morning being a good leader and skimming the most recent reports (short version: there are no new ways of saying nothing’s going on, but they sure as hell try), checking in with Chuck and Brenda, and watching Cas and his laptop bond like a lot. As yet, he hasn’t figured out a legit objection to its existence, but he’s sure as hell inspired to keep trying; this is getting ridiculous.
When they drop casually by the infirmary—Alicia’s on patrol, which means no one’s allowed to get injured and condoms are being distributed by an utterly miserable Chuck—Cas presents to his horrified gaze a red wrist brace (firetruck red, holy shit) like a gift you’d give to someone you hate and want dead.
“For use on the range,” Cas explains, capturing Dean’s right hand and shoving it on without ceremony before leaving Dean to contemplate how anything can be that goddamn red. “Alicia recommended it to give your wrist support as you rebuild the muscles in your right arm.”
Dean hates it, hates it; he hates it even more when he realizes it’s actually helping. The brace holds his wrist and forearm steady, reducing the strain considerably and making it a lot easier to concentrate on his aim. That doesn’t change the fact it’s a red that makes all other reds crawl away in shame and they gotta do something about that.
His arm and hand are both still a work in progress; regaining his strength and range is both slow and incredibly tedious, and how much he’ll get back is still up in the air. Cas was brutally honest regarding the combined effects of nerve damage and the potential for long-term paralysis of those muscle groups damaged by the infection, which Dean appreciates; knowing that, it’s a lot easier to believe Cas when he tells him how much progress he’s made.
If he’s honest with himself, he knows he probably won’t ever get his right back to what it was before the fever—Cas never said it, but he figures he didn’t think he needed to—but weirdly enough, it doesn’t bother him nearly as much as he thought it would. Remembering the day he first asked Cas about it—still stuck in bed between fevers with nothing to do but stare at that goddamn bandage, unable to imagine how the fuck he could be a hunter after this—he wonders what the hell he was thinking. Had to be the multiple fevers fucking with his head or something.
Taking his last shot, he lowers the nine-millimeter, clicking the safety on and replacing it in its holster as he stretches his fingers carefully, aware of a sense of satisfaction as Cas’s gaze flickers over the targets approvingly. “How’d I do?”
“Flawless, of course,” he answers. How’s your hand?”
He holds it up with a grin; he can feel the strain, but the tremor hasn’t started yet. “Got it again.”
“Excellent. You should take a break and rest it before you try for a fifth time,” Cas answers, tipping his head toward the edge of the orchard, where he set up shop with a small armory (in case of wandering demons), several bottles of water, the remains of lunch, and snacks in an ice chest liberated from the mess, and those of Vera’s records related to Dean’s injury, all spread out on a worn blanket beneath a canopy of bare branches.
It’s exactly what it looks like: a really well-armed picnic.
Someone (probably Joe) explained the concept to Cas in detail, since from what Dean’s worked out, his camp thinks going to the range to shoot targets is their equivalent of date night (date afternoon?). Cas, being Cas, apparently ran with it, if the ice chest Brenda offered to him with a knowing smile when Cas insisted they stop at the mess before they left is any indication.
(“I understand this is a custom among your people,” Cas told him blandly when he got in the jeep after placing it, the blanket, and a bag in the backseat. “I’m demonstrating my acquisition of human social skills as well as cultural sensitivity.”
“Holy shit,” Dean said from the passenger seat, a little awed. “This thing’s given you all new ways to fuck with people, hasn’t it?”
“And to think,” Cas said wistfully as he turns the ignition, “that it used to require effort on my part. And this is socially acceptable as well. If only I’d known.”)
Dean can’t really fault the shooting practice equals date, though; this definitely beats the shit out of a movie and dinner hands down, and Brenda’s romantic soul is the reason there are cookies as well. He assumes there’s no wine in the camp or there’d have been a bottle tucked between the cold chicken and the container of butter-soaked sliced potatoes, because Brenda’s like that.
Dropping down on the blanket against one of the apple trees, Dean retrieves a bottle of water as Cas finishes with his notes regarding Dean’s latest triumph over adversity or whatever. Like Alicia, Cas isn’t allowed to write in Vera’s actual records—there’s added paper with Castiel written at the top, underlined twice—but he religiously updates it for her to read when she gets back.
To his surprise, he finds himself looking forward to it, and not because of anything having to do with Alpha. Unlike most of the camp even now, Vera’s filters with him were eroded enough to be willing to say what others still won’t, and he thinks he may finally have earned at least the benefit of the doubt from her. More, he didn’t have to be so careful with her; those weeks after the fever meant she probably knew him almost better than anyone but Cas. Other than Cas and Joe, she’s the closest to a friend he has here, and he misses her caustic commentary as much as the rare moments she forgot who he was and just enjoyed hanging out.
“Kamal is going to require an experienced team in Ichabod,” Cas says, tucking away the folders in the bag where there’s no laptop in evidence, which just means this day’s almost perfect. Except for the wrist brace, but he can fix that. Paint it or something, maybe. “Joseph’s team made initial contact with the towns and are therefore familiar, and under Joseph’s leadership, they’ve learned a great deal. They’d be excellent candidates for transfer to an inexperienced team leader.”
“You want to take Joe’s team away from him?” Dean answers with as much horror and disappointment as he can muster, which isn’t much; that’s not a bad idea.
“If you wish to have Joseph as well—” Cas starts carefully.
“No, of course not; we need him here.” Joe’s a good leader; showing the ropes to a whole new team would be right up his alley. Getting him to go along with it is a different story; Dean’s pretty sure ‘lack of Leah’ on his team is gonna be a dealbreaker, not that he pays attention to that kind of thing. “We’ll talk to him when he gets back, but I’m telling you now, he’s gonna hate it.”
“I understand the burdens of leadership include having to deal with your team leaders occasionally not speaking to you due to a sense of personal betrayal,” Cas observes helpfully. “It’s a commonly known fact. I’m surprised you haven’t heard of it, considering I’m intimately acquainted with the phenomenon.”
“Yeah, but that’s different,” Dean argues. “One, you don’t care what anyone thinks, and two, you didn’t like Kyle anyway.”
“Ah,” Cas says, nodding. “This would be a textbook illustration of the concept of nepotism and you embracing it. I approve of your progress in corruption.”
Dean settles for glaring how much this isn’t nepotism, but people skills and being sensitive to your subordinates’ feelings so they don’t shoot you instead of a werewolf.
“Offer him free choice of keeping one member and he’ll concede,” Cas says finally, looking amused. “And then Sheila won’t forget to add oil to the jeeps in passive-aggressive retaliation for taking her partner from her less than two months after they moved in together.”
Dean winces; he forgot about Mike and Sheila. “Pretty sure he’ll pick Leah.” At Cas’s skeptical look, he cocks his head challengingly. “What are you willing to lose?”
“Winner names the forfeit,” he answers immediately. “Deal?”
“Deal.” Setting down the bottle, he strips off the brace to shake on it and winces when he tries to stretch his fingers. No tremor, but the cramps sure as hell are trying to make up for it. “Crap.”
“Give me your hand,” Cas says imperiously, removing a bottle of oil from the bag. Squinting, he tries to read the faded label, but the herby smell when Cas opens it reassures him that this time, he isn’t gonna go around smelling like flowers or something the rest of the day. Seeing his relief, Cas rolls his eyes. “Yes, I remembered this time, though why you’d object to lavender is a mystery.”
Extending his hand, he starts to comment on Cas’s seemingly endless collection of oils and then belatedly realizes the reason and their probable use before now. Luckily, that train of thought is interrupted by Cas pouring a small amount onto his hand before his magic fingers go to work, and the only thing Dean can think about is the sheer relief as he starts to tease each knot loose.
“You’re doing very well,” he hears Cas say, thumb working steadily across his palm and leaving a trail of surrendered muscles behind. He didn’t think Cas could get better at this after that first time, but he was so very wrong; it’s like he can sense what those muscles are doing and knows exactly what to do to make them stop, with truly amazing results.
He raises his eyebrows and just bites back a groan when Cas hits the sore spot in the webbing between his thumb and first finger. It always tightens up fast and no amount of stretching it himself does jack shit to fix it.
“Really?” he manages in what may or may not be a normal voice, but fuck if he cares; that feels incredible.
“It’s been less than a month since you started regular practice on the range,” Cas points out, thankfully oblivious to Dean’s reaction to whatever magic he just performed on his knuckles, Jesus Christ. “You’ve already increased your accuracy with your left to be almost equal to that of your right with both handguns and most of our rifles in your previous best range as well as increased your best range significantly. You’ve proved you’re a very fast learner; all that remains is the muscle training to make it automatic, which will doubtless progress as quickly as everything else you’ve done.”
“The range isn’t real time fighting,” Dean argues half-heartedly, almost able to ignore the warm glow of pride at Cas’s assessment. Almost.
No matter what’s going on in the camp, Cas is always on hand for a few hours on the range, and to his lack of surprise, Cas is actually a very good teacher. His people skills might be for shit when it comes to social interactions, but he’s good at combining clinical honesty with utter confidence, and while ruthless in making sure Dean does what he should—including mind-numbing amounts of practice in shit like drawing his gun without actually shooting it—he’s of the positive reinforcement school of thought. Dean doesn’t want to speculate here, but he can say with certainty that Cas didn’t get that from Dean Winchester (of the John Winchester School of Education: lots of yelling just to start), which means what he’s seeing is probably at least partially due to Amy of Alpha.
“That’s what reflexes are for,” Cas answers dismissively, letting go of Dean’s hand and wiping his hands meticulously clean before putting away the oil. Dean just barely bites back the protest, mostly because he can’t think of a reason to continue when his hand is so relaxed it’s almost boneless. “You’ve identified the point your right hand tires accurately four times so far. One more time today should be sufficient after you’ve rested it for a little while longer.”
Dean nods, taking another drink from his water bottle. He’s kind of been waiting for this. “So there’s something else I wanted to talk to you about.”
“Oh?”
“Alison says you’re a box,” he says with relish. “A cold box.”
Cas stares at him for a long time, giving the general impression that Dean’s sanity is in question.
“She was trying to read me.” Cas straightens so fast Dean thinks he heard something pop: so that’s not good. “And said it was like—that you were—”
“A box?”
“A cold box,” Dean corrects him. “You wear three layers when you go outside and socks to sleep, so how—”
“Since I’m not literally a six sided storage container, we can assume the cold is also metaphorical,” Cas answers impatiently. “Let’s return to the far more interesting subject of Alison trying to read you. The mayor of Ichabod is a psychic?”
“And a clairvoyant.”
“The mayor of Ichabod is a psychic and a clairvoyant?”
“Yeah, but—”
“To clarify: for over three weeks, you’ve been visiting a town whose mayor is a psychic—”
“I didn’t know about that until a couple of days ago!” Dean interrupts; this isn’t going like he expected. “Cas—”
“And you didn’t return immediately with those you stationed in Ichabod?” Cas asks him quietly, and Dean belatedly goes on full alert. Last time he heard Cas sound like that, he was describing to Jeffrey his future as a living, decomposing wall ornament for Chitaqua. “Do you realize—”
“She can’t read my mind,” Dean argues. “She said I’m the first person that she met that she couldn’t.” From Cas’s expression, not only doesn’t that help, it’s probably word for word what everyone says when a psychic’s manipulating them. “It’s not like that. She tried and everything, but it doesn’t work with me.” Also probably what everyone says when a psychic’s manipulating them. “Look, that’s not the problem—”
“There’s something else?”
“Give me a second!” Okay, new plan: actually have one. Alison’s not a demon, just a vaguely antagonistic human psychic who looks like she doesn’t get much sleep these days and has shitty dreams when she does. “If I thought she was dangerous, I would have brought everyone back and ended the deal.”
“And as you felt she wasn’t,” and the edge in his voice is unmistakable, “it wasn’t important enough to remember to tell me last night.”
“Cas—”
“You said if I agreed to take this position in Chitaqua that you would always listen to my objections, even if you disagreed,” Cas says flatly. “If your solution is to avoid telling me what you plan to do so I don’t have the opportunity to object, however, consider this my resignation—”
“That’s not what I was doing!” He didn’t even think of that, Jesus. “She’s human—”
“Humans are the most dangerous predators my Father ever created,” Cas interrupts, still in that unsettlingly flat voice. “If you believe otherwise—”
“You’ll lock me up in the camp again?”
He regrets it the minute he says it, and regrets it even more when he sees Cas’s face just before he looks away. The words seem to hang over them in the quiet of the orchard in endless repetition: he’d kill for a goddamn breeze right now.
“I didn’t mean—”
“Yes,” Cas says quietly, “you did.”
Shoot targets, eat lunch, shoot some more, get a kick-ass hand massage, spend some time with his best friend without half his attention on that goddamn laptop or something else having to do with the camp: it wasn’t like he was asking for a lot here. Yet somehow—against all odds—he managed to fuck that up, too.
“Perhaps I should have clarified myself on this issue prior to today,” Cas says finally, in the most painfully careful voice that Dean’s ever had the misfortune to listen to. “You were correct; I was trapping you here.”
He sucks in a breath. “I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t need to,” he answers, looking at him, all expression smoothed away. “It’s exactly what I was doing and I apologize. I’d hoped the last two weeks had made that clear when I raised no objections to you spending time in Ichabod, but apparently clarification was needed. You’re happier now, and I do approve of that very much.” He settles back, looking at Dean attentively, in case this wasn’t already a nightmare in the making and it needed the help. “Your judgment regarding Alison is superior to my own, of course. If you feel she’s safe, then there’s no more to be said on the subject.
Dean would love a demon to attack them right now: he’d take an imp with a chip on its shoulder at this point. Give Cas a way to work out some of that aggression non-passively and him some time to figure out what the hell he missed: everyone wins. That’s not happening, so—
“She wants to meet you.” Cas’s expression of interested attention couldn’t be better; Dean almost buys it himself. “She didn’t used to be a psychic, that part’s new.”
Yeah, nothing.
“Started about four months ago, which hey, is it just me, or does that coincide with another weird event that happened around that time?” He searches Cas’s face and thinks he may see a flicker. “She said it was when the attacks stopped on her town.”
Cas is silent for what feels like years, blue eyes distant, and Dean forces himself to be patient. This is definitely an improvement over earlier, when he was pretty sure Cas was about to go hotwire the jeep and pay a visit to Ichabod, which is not how he thinks Alison and Cas should first meet, but not anything like he’d hoped.
“You wouldn’t be aware of this,” Cas says finally, “because in general, it’s utterly unimportant to know, but roughly twenty-six point eight percent of the human population has latent psychic abilities, and that’s during periods of time you aren’t engaged in an active war against evil. The percentage is even higher among hunters and it’s almost guaranteed in families who have been hunting for three generations or more. It’s not that unusual.”
Dean gives Cas a look to remind him he really doesn’t need to know this or honestly care.
“Of course.” Cas settles himself into educational mode, which is a lot less annoying than it used to be. “Generally, latent abilities are only awakened by an extremely traumatic event, either personal or global, or long-term exposure to supernatural influences.”
“So—going with that—the global event we call the Apocalypse started years ago. If it was gonna happen, it should have happened then, right?”
“The first time it started was years ago.”
Dean is halfway through his nod before ‘first time’ penetrates. “’First time’?”
“Yes,” Cas confirms. “In a sense—”
“You think we’re on our second Apocalypse?” Okay, this is new information. “So how’d the first one end?”
“With Dean’s death in Kansas City,” Cas answers.
“What?”
“Technically speaking, while prophecy didn’t require a Dean Winchester specific to this world being present, you are still a different Dean Winchester.”
Dean blinks his inability to translate that into ‘makes sense.’
“Your arrival might not have caused a continuance, but instead a—reboot,” Cas says, brightening. “Like when Hollywood released movies involving the Hulk twice in five years’ time under different titles, starring different actors, and with different continuities, yet were equally terrible.”
Dean shuts his mouth.
“I found Edward Norton’s interpretation far superior, however,” Cas continues thoughtfully in the spirit of being a goddamn freak. “The point stands, however.”
“That this is kind of the equivalent of a Hollywood remake of the original Apocalypse?” Oh God, he’s been around Cas too long, that makes sense. “Second verse, almost but not quite identical to the first.”
“It’s not as if this has ever happened before,” Cas adds almost apologetically. “There are other possibilities—”
“Let’s stick with the one I understand,” Dean interrupts before Cas actually tells him all about them. “So—going with that—why would Alison be affected by the remake and not the original?”
“If she’s telling the truth, I’m not sure.” Cas frowns. “What did she say happened?”
“She said that day was bad—off, everyone felt it, and she was napping in her office when something woke her up.” He hesitates, but he’s gotta know. “She said she felt like—like something she forgot about happened, she didn’t miss it, and everything would be okay. The psychic thing showed up the next morning.” Cas’s expression flickers. “She’s clairvoyant, but she can’t remember what she dreams, just—something like knowing she can do something to avoid it or something.”
Cas hesitates. “I can’t be certain—”
“She may have dreamed about me coming here.” Saying it out loud makes it real the way it wasn’t before. “She just doesn’t remember it.”
“It’s possible,” Cas admits. “But until I talk to her myself, that’s only a guess, and even then, there’s no way to be certain.” He gives Dean a searching look. “She told you she can’t read you?”
He nods. “She said I’m the only one she can’t.”
“You believe her?”
“Once she told me what she was, I knew what to look for.” Exposure to Sam and Pamela motivated him to learn how to look for retrospective signs, and there aren’t any he can find. An experienced psychic could probably get around that, but he trusts his instincts, and they all tell him she’s not just new at this, she’s bad at it. “I could be wrong, but I don’t think so. Any way you can tell?”
Cas tucks a leg against his chest, chin on his knee. “How did she describe what she sensed when she tried to read you?”
“She said you were a box—”
“A metaphor, obviously, though not the one I would have chosen,” he says a little impatiently. “What does that have to do with—” He stops short. “Why did she mention me at all?”
“I’d go with weird-ass ocean myself,” Dean offers, wondering why Cas looks startled. “She said she slid by me to you, the cold box, and that’s why she couldn’t read me.”
Cas’s eyes widen. “She described it as ‘sliding’? That exact word?”
“Slip and slide central: not just a fun summer activity anymore.” Dean thinks of the doorway of their cabin, the invisible symbols marching up and down the frame. “Is it just me or does that sound really familiar?”
“She’s telling the truth,” Cas says slowly. “She can’t read you.”
Dean goes through everything he remembers about what Cas told him about the wards in the cabin and tries to decide what part he understood enough to even ask about so he’ll have half a chance of understanding the answer.
“I thought that only happened if I was in the cabin and sleeping there every night,” Dean starts. “And I’d be invisible.”
“For the wards to work, yes, though recently it seems that the ‘every night’ is no longer applicable,” Cas answers absently. “I meant to tell you about that; it seems they accept your absences as temporary—at least, those of four days, which has been your longest time away—” He makes a face, shaking his head. “However, the wards aren’t what’s doing this.”
Dean fights the urge to groan. Of course it’s not gonna be that easy. “Just tell me.”
“All the wards do is create an illusion that affects all five senses in corporeal beings within these four walls, making you effectively invisible,” Cas explains, getting a look eerily reminiscent of Sam when he reads too much and forgets Dean doesn’t care. “Contamination is what gives the wards the object to tell their senses why they can’t see you, that being that you don’t exist independently of me.” In a stunning display of personal growth, Cas actually stops to think about that. “That sounds terrible.”
“Didn’t think anything could top ‘spoils of war’,” Dean agrees, so over the entire ‘owns me’ thing that it’s actually kind of depressing. “So you’re saying psychics can’t read me even when I’m not in the cabin? Because of the contamination thing?”
“If her description of it as ‘sliding to a box’—”
“Cold box.”
“—’cold box’,” Cas agrees, and yeah, that’s definitely an edge, “then no, she can’t. I assumed the sigils in the wards were entirely responsible for the mental component, but it seems that contamination itself causes that.” To Dean’s surprise, Cas’s mouth curves in a faint smile. “What she said—it fits how a human might perceive me now. A human psychic can’t read an angel’s mind, even in a vessel; our true form makes that…”
“A shitty idea,” Dean finishes for him, remembering Pamela with a wince. “But you don’t have Grace now.”
“Which is why she wasn’t physically injured,” Cas tells him. “There are other dangers, however. Remember how I described what happened in Kansas City when I tried to—”
“—see all things and bled out your ears?” Dean asks incredulously, widening his eyes at Cas’s frown. “Sounds familiar, yeah. You said it was like too much information…oh. Your mind would be like that for her if she tried to read you?”
“Infinity isn’t something the human mind can deal with well if at all,” Cas says. “At best, the sheer glut of information would be the equivalent of white noise and therefore utterly inexplicable, if very loud, in a manner of speaking. At worst…”
“Kill her in a rupturing her brain kind of way, complete with bleeding ears?” No, he’s not over it and never will be, thanks for asking.
“Nothing so terrible,” Cas assures him. “Insanity, possibly permanent. Assuming she wanted to survive the inevitable migraine of trying to interpret infinity and failing, and I wouldn’t.”
Oh yeah, much better. “Right.”
“I assume by her description that when she realized what was happening, she stopped trying to read you before discovering exactly where she was going,” Cas continues thoughtfully. “Excellent decision on her part: at this distance, and being unaware of what she was doing, I’m not sure if I’d even be able to sense it or be able to stop her before she was injured.”
“She guessed it was you, though,” Dean says deliberately. “After she got what you were out of Amanda’s mind the other night, I mean.”
Cas raises his eyebrows. “Interesting, considering I doubt a new psychic would have so much experience with angels—or Fallen, as the case might be—to come to that conclusion.”
“Especially since you didn’t know it yourself,” Dean points out casually. “Weird, huh?”
“When did you say her partner Teresa returned to Ichabod?”
That’s what he was thinking. “Night before she told me.” Dean cocks his head. “Maybe a coincidence.”
“It’s not.” Cas reaches for his half-empty bottle of water and takes a drink, eyes distant. “Do Amanda and the others know yet?”
“No. I told Alison I’d talk to you first, decide how we handle this.” Abruptly, Cas starts to smile. “What?”
“If Alison can’t read you, that means that no psychic can,” he answers. “That may extend to demons as well. I assumed the sigils you were wearing and Jeffrey’s distraction were the reason, but this would simplify things considerably.” Dean looks at him blankly. “That means no psychic—or demon—can read out of your mind who you are.”
“I knew that,” he says immediately, ignoring Cas’s snort. “Okay, not all of it. You mean even demons won’t know who I am?”
“Jeffrey isn’t the brightest specimen,” Cas admits, then looking more cheerful, adds, “However, the next demon we encounter, we’ll test it before I kill it so it can’t report back.”
How to put Cas in a good mood: imminent demon-killing, or remembering Cas’s enthusiasm with the wards, experimenting with bonus demon-killing. He really hopes Teresa’s not on the wrong side of the line on use and abuse of magic; Cas really needs a buddy to talk to about this kind of shit who understands it, and while Dean’s more than willing when it comes to the former, he won’t pretend he’ll ever manage the latter.
“Told you Ichabod was interesting,” Dean says a little smugly.
“You did. We should finish your last round,” Cas says abruptly, getting to his feet and gazing critically to the west, where the sun is almost visibly drooping behind its cover of clouds. “It’s getting late.”
“Got things to do back at the camp?” Dean asks, not quite able to keep the edge out of his voice.
Cas doesn’t notice. “Nothing that couldn’t be delayed until evening,” he answers. “Are you ready or do you need more time?”
Dean pastes on a smile: good to know where he ranks these days. “Let’s get it over with.”